Talk:Omni Productions

According to Madman's info on their upcoming Masterforce DVD, the languages are English and Japanese, so unless they screwed up the listing, they might have included the dub on there. --FFN 22:09, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Examples

This page BADLY needs some examples of the dub madness. Also, Spaceship Bruce.

In fact, it'd be terrific if each episode had its own "Misquotes" section with the best of the quotes from the dubs. -- Repowers 10:26, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Oh no no, no no no no no...I watched Transformers RTM dub on T.V. when I was a kid and it was cool. Now it makes ears bleed, and all the Transformers in the show sound like they were dubbed by one poor, unfortunate voice actor. Who sounded British. Sometimes. Almost. Maybe. -- akindofdrifter

Ownership

I think it should be pointed out somewhere that Hasbro now legally owns the outside-of-Japan rights to the Japanese G1 episodes, seeing as they're part of the Sunbow catalogue that they bought from TV Loonland. --FFN 04:02, 11 April 2009 (EDT)

... and Hasbro wants absolutely nothing to do with the dubs - they forbade Brian Ward from including them in the R1 releases.

Dubbed by Omni Productions

From a perusal of the ADR scripts of the Headmasters dubs as originally included with Metrodome's DVD release of the series, Omni Productions' name (and phone number) appears on some of the script headers. A quick check on Google reveals there is indeed an Omni Productions dubbing studio in Hong Kong with the very same phone number - so it looks like we've found the culprits actually responsible for these... experiences. The company's also name-checked in a Godzilla profile book, which fits in with the same few voice actors being heard in some of the later Godzilla films (plus the detail on the actors mispronouncing simple words like Godzilla sounds familiar when one considers Roadimus Prime).

Omni probably merit a mention on the main page, but I'm not sure if the page itself should be retitled first since we've finally got the dubbing company name. We've got a statement that the "RTM 1 dub" is the most correct way of describing them, which might be a moot point now that we have Omni's name. Of course, I think most people still refer to them as the "Star TV dubs" anyway so I may be on the wrong track here! --Jon T 10:47, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

Holy biscuits! That's some nice detective work! Yeah, I think we could stand to rename the page to "Omni Productions dub" or something like that. Or maybe just "Omni Productions" and then rework it a bit to include information about both the company and the dub. - Chris McFeely 11:04, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

I'm veering toward just a plain "Omni Productions" article about the company since that's typically what we do with article about companies. We could split them. Keep the "RTM1 Dub" article as is and then make an article about Omni Productions the company.

Oh, and we totally need a cast list. --DrSpengler 12:12, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

I'll be goddamned. this is some of the biggest insignificant news we've had in a while! (I'm not kidding, that's awesome to know, but it's also way high on the Shit Nobody Cares About totem pole.) And yes, we need to give all four of the people who worked on the dub the credit (and mockery) they deserve. Hooper_X 14:24, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

I second splitting off the company info, and also also have a burning need to know who these people are. --abates 20:30, 20 October 2009 (EDT)

Wow, didn't expect the page name change so fast - although I should've known better considering this site's standards! I'd be interested in a cast list as well (not that it would be a long list, obviously!), but alas this information will likely be much harder to find, as no matter how many productions Omni obviously dubbed, they went uncredited on all of them. Wonder why that was? :)

All I can say is that this is definitely the same company that Toei also used on the select Dragonball production, and that Toho seemed to use them an awful lot for films they made and distributed, like the aforementioned 80s/90s Godzilla films, and also various 80s anime movies like the 1984 Macross movie, Technopolice, Locke the Superman, Leda, etc.

Another thing I noticed when looking at the Omni scripts on the Headmasters DVD were the downright bizarre names they had for some of the characters that were made a bit more sensible by the time they actually dubbed the episodes. MegaZarak is called Chandler and Scorponok (Lord Zarak) is called Sogi, for instance in the scripts. Out of curiosity, I plugged those names into Google and it looks like these same names were used on a Spanish dub of Headmasters, clearly implying they used the same translation. What more does this tell us about Omni? Very little, I suspect. But somehow the idea that the episodes were translated from Japanese to Spanish and then to English might just explain why the scripts are as basic as they are. In any case, I think that's exhausted everything I can say about all this for now! -- Jon T 11:15, 21 October 2009 (EDT)

I only gave those scripts the slightest of perusals (there one or two there, as I recall, that aren't Omni scripts... the first episode, I think, seemed to be the original script for the episode, translated... it had a scene where the Throttlebots brought Spike up to speed on the Decepticon attack, IIRC), but I recall some of those crazy names, too. Scourge was "Garth" and the Autobot and Decepticon Clones were the Nicks and Bens Brothers. :D - Chris McFeely 11:33, 21 October 2009 (EDT)

Duuuuuuuuuuude. You KNEW about those awesomely awful script names for the characters ALL this time and never added them to the Wiki!? Keepin' em to yourself!? You greedy bastard. Angry face. >:( --DrSpengler 12:52, 21 October 2009 (EDT)

To satisfy Abates' burning need: I worked for a number of dubbing companies in HK in the 80's and 90's, including Omni Productions (as it came to be known later). If you have any questions I'll try to get back with answers in my spare time. There are a lot of misconceptions about the dubbing of series such as these, which unfortunately disparage those who were involved. Maybe this might need another topic (I don't know what your wiki rules are). Talk later. Preparetodie 04:31, 10 December 2010 (EST)

We would be ecstatic to devour any information you have to offer. --ItsWalky 06:43, 10 December 2010 (EST)

I think some of the basic information such as who actually commissioned the dubs and who the actors were wouldn't go amiss. Was it Takara, Hasbro or Toei themselves who bankrolled these dubs; when was this done and why? Hasbro Malaysia (known as Palmyra Enterprises) during the original airing of the dubs in Malaysia actually sponsored the series, so they were coordinating their marketing efforts with an early (the earliest?) known airing of the series in English, complete with most of the original three Japanese toylines freely available in that region a couple of years after they were released in Japan.

Where did the weird names come from in the original dialogue scripts, that were almost all completely changed to their Hasbro (not Takara) equivalents where applicable? With regard the actors, it would be understandable if you don't want to ID any of them given the comments made about the dubs. In any case, from comparing the Transformers dubs to the anime movies mentioned above, it's clear the Transformers dubs were done in a far shorter space of time with accordingly fewer resources (actors). Jon T 07:21, 12 December 2010 (EST)

Okay, the information I have may be a bit sketchy because I don't think I was working for them when they did Transformers, I only joined them in 86. However, I did contact my ex-boss who gave me the following info: "Interesting thing is, when we dubbed Transformers, over 30 years ago, we were not called Omni Productions. At that time we were called [***]. Also we were provided with a list of names by the client that we had to rigidly adhere to. Reason for this was they were producing toys, models of all the characters at the same time as we were dubbing". It's strange therefore that the dubs are referred to as the Omni Dubs.

I suspect the dubbing scripts were written from the En subtitle list or Jp/En translation provided by the prod company. This is the way it usually was done. As far as I remember, our clients were the companies that bought the rights to the series (whether Transformers or any other series or movies) in the export country, not the companies that produced them. For example, if a Chinese movie was bought for distribution in the Philippines, we'd dub an English language version for it. For the most part, the budgets were extremely low, which limited both the number of actors we could use and the time we had to write/dub it. TV series and cheap movies were mostly dubbed on video, although the better stuff was done on 35mm. Remember that the target markets were usually not native English-speaking, so the absolutely perfect American accent was not a deciding factor. We had Americans, Canadians, Australians, Brits, it was like the United Nations. You just had to be damn quick - dub 3 or 4 pages on the fly without stopping. Obviously, to a native English-speaker, the different accents stick out a mile.

Omni (as it later became known, and under its original owners) also did some very high quality stuff (award-winning TV series, documentaries)and some films by famous Chinese directors. Obviously, the budgets in these cases were not the same and time was less of a factor.

Important note: This information refers to the Transformers dubbing done some 30 years ago and, more generally, to the way things were done when I worked for them back in the 80's and 90's. I don't know about Headmasters or any more recent stuff. The company was sold on a few years back and I have no contact with the new owners.

For the list of dubbers, I'd have to ask the company's then owner if he remembers who did what and we'd probably have to get their permission. It might be complicated. I'll try to give you more info if required.

I'm guessing your boss might be misremembering things here, because Transformers themselves aren't 30 years old, let alone the dubbed series, which were from 1987 to 1989. Since you joined them in 86, it would in a way suggest that you were indeed around while these series were being dubbed.

Still, some interesting, if somewhat vague, stuff in here. Was Omni really originally called [***] or are you self-censoring? --Detour 14:43, 17 December 2010 (EST)

We got the Omni Productions name from the ADR scripts as mentioned above. I guess the name could have been added to them when they were supplied to Metronome. --abates 19:12, 17 December 2010 (EST)

You may be right about the vagueness in dates. When I joined, the company mainly did feature films and TV series, and I don't remember anyone talking about Transformers at the time, although I was just a newbie, so I wasn't informed of everything that was going on.

No, the company wasn't called ****. I just didn't think it necessary to include it. It wasn't my company, so just being polite. It's of no consequence I assure you.

I'd be interested to see a screenshot of the titles (or a short avi) with "Omni Productions" mentioned. It might yield some info that would be useful... just a guess.

FWIW, a lot of the dubbers worked as bit actors in HK films of that era. Just type in Godfrey Ho on Youtube. Godfrey was the king!Preparetodie 14:33, 18 January 2011 (EST)

Do you happen to know the names of any voice actors, and if possible, characters they voiced? --NCZ 14:36, 18 January 2011 (EST)

Oh my god. Oh my god. The Headmasters dub team was the same team who did all the Godfrey Ho movies? That is two of my biggest nerd interests in pure joyous conjunction. Oh my god. -hx 15:30, 18 January 2011 (EST)

Just looking back through the thread and I noticed someone mentions a phone number. What was that number? It would help me identify if we're talking about the actual Omni or the previous one. Also, is there a (c) and date reference?

Just an extra note on the Transformers / Godfrey Ho link: In HK at the time, there were 2 or 3 dubbing "teams" that co-existed. Some members used to dub with more than one team, so there was a lot of crossing over. Omni (old version) did most of the high quality stuff, along with Annie M. There was another "team" that did a lot of TV stuff for TVB and ATV. For Godfrey and other "B" quality dubbing, teams were usually pulled together on an ad-hoc basis and supervised either by the local director (Godfrey or others) or by the dubber who got the contract. (I remember dubbing a whole war film in 5 hours flat with just four dubbers in the studio!) Later, Omni's policy was to require exclusivity with its dubbers, in great part due to the fact that Omni was the only company that would actually train dubbers (fair's fair...).

So, if the dub you're talking about was done during those years up to about the early 2000's, then some of the voices on the dub will probably be found in some of Godfrey's films (mainy from an earlier era). I'd really need to hear the sound to identify any voices. However, you afficionados may be able to identify some voices by looking at the clips on Youtube. If I manage to find any of my co-dubbers, I'll ask them the question though. Preparetodie 09:22, 20 January 2011 (EST)

You can listen to some of the voices here if it helps any [1]

98.213.117.127 13:19, 26 January 2011 (EST)

I don't know if we've ever pinned down exactly when the dubs were made, but the last Victory episode screened in Japan in December '89, and this Aug '92 rec.arts.anime post says the Omni Victory dub had already aired by that point, so it looks like they were done in the very early 90s. Can someone with the ADR scripts check for dates? --abates 14:44, 20 January 2011 (EST)

The ADR scripts mostly have Omni's details blanked out of any pages where they would have appeared, but a couple slipped the net, most notably on page 16 of episode 16's script, which clearly states on the page header "OMNI PRODUCTIONS LTD TEL No. 852 792 9674 Mar 28.92", so this, along with the usenet post cited above, and indeed a letter that appeared in the UK comic definitively pins down the dubs as existing by the early 1990s. Given that dubbed Masterforce was already on TV in 1990, it's possible that the Headmasters dub might have been initiated while Victory was still airing in Japan, rather than waiting until all three series had aired. At the earliest it looks like they were either dubbed between late 1989-1990, or at the latest 1990-1991, so that's the sort of timeframe we're looking at. - Jon T 18:31, 20 January 2011 (EST)

I took a look at the voices page. I think I can identify at least four voices: SixShot, Galvatron, Blaster Hound, Carly and SnapDragon. I'm pretty sure SixShot, Blaster and Hound were done by the same guy. All these dubbers worked at some point for Omni (and its previous incarnation) before it was sold on in the early 2000's. Preparetodie 10:22, 2 February 2011 (EST)

Has anyone stopped to consider that this information suggests that there may somewhere exist a Spaceship Bruce toy? I mean, what I gather from the above is that these dubs were commissioned by someone who intended to use them to sell toys, and the character names were likely specified by them. The toys didn't necessarily need to be sold in HK, the company who commissioned them may have been based there, or they got a good deal on the dubbing there. And it didn't even need to go to a country that had a lot of native English-speakers (in fact it likely didn't), it probably went to a country where something being in English alone lent it credibility, even though the target audience wouldn't understand it well (or at all). Anyway, great to see that a lot of these old mysteries are finally being solved. Now lets find someone with a hot-rod go-cart. --???

I dunno about the toy, but it's quite possible. All that kind of stuff is made in China anyway. The rest is right though. Most of these HK dubs were meant for non-native English-speaking countries such as Indonesia, India, Philippines and often commissioned by the "importer". It was usually the dubbing studio that had the contact with the overseas client and acted as the middleman with the the dubbing company. I would think that only a few of the high-quality films dubbed were meant for the US or other English-speaking markets and probably video versions at that, although we did do quite a few Jackie Chans, some Japanese series including "Oshin" and some high-end Chinese films such as "Lifetimes". Good point, though: having an English soundtrack probably gave it credibility. Also, as I think I mentioned previously, Chinese language films were forbidden in Indonesia at one time. Preparetodie 08:52, 8 September 2011 (EDT)

HI All! I worked for Omni Productions, producer of Transformers,(and Godfey Ho amongst others)from 82 to 89. What fun! (in retrospect!). I was one of the voices in the Transformers series (I forget which character: easily forgettable)along with many other of Rick's grade A-Z films. (I also wrote many sync scripts for Ninja and other forgettable films.) I have to laugh reading through all your comments. Hey Preparetodie! Were you the one who dubbed the throw-up over the toilet bowl scene that went on for 1 or 2 minutes and us dubbers in the recording studio couldn't hold our laughter for the duration so you had to repeat it many times?? Memorable. BTW: there were no English speaking dubbing teams in HK. Dubbers could only be referred to, if at all, as the A dubbers or the rest. --Hkdubber

Thanks for stopping by! It's hard finding info on you guys. We'd love to fill out more cast information for Omni Productions if there's any way you might be able to recall some of your characters (even if it's just pointing out their picture to us, as I get that the Transformers' names probably aren't very reliable or memorable). --DrSpengler 11:58, 20 February 2013 (EST)

Screen/source

I think we should mention that the source of Omni Productions is possibly direct from the on-air version in Japan instead of video released in Japan. Since in several episode (especially in Masterforce section), lots of message (in Japanese) is visible on screen saying "There will be blah blah blah next week" and something like that. --04:48, 21 October 2009 (EDT)

Characteristics

The section almost exclusively deals with name changes. There should definitely also be a paragraph, however brief, about the general way in which characters talk, including the "translation" of Japanese curses and swear words with offensive English equivalents such as "You are an evil man!"--Nevermore 09:51, 20 October 2010 (EDT)

Missing from the US release

We should probably discuss somewhere that the Shout! Factory DVDs won't have these tracks. -hx at work

Another lead

I was inspired to go web searching to try to find out more info on the dubs and found this recent post on a Classic Horror Film Board (the whole thread's worth reading). Listening to some of the voice samples on the pages that guy's linking to, I think we might be able to positively identify some of the actors from the dub. Though there's only two samples on his page, Rick (or Rik) Thomas's samples sound very much like the narrator/Galvatron/Deathsaurus/etc. I think some of the samples on the other VA pages that post links to sound familiar too. Anyone with a better ear for voices than me want to give them a listen? --abates 04:58, 23 November 2011 (EST)

Beyond a doubt, Rick Thomas is that one dude. The other actors linked in that post don't immediately ring any Omni bells for me, though. - Chris McFeely 06:07, 23 November 2011 (EST)

I am SO HARD right now. (I'm declaring this notable information.) --ItsWalky 09:33, 23 November 2011 (EST)

From an interview with Mike Abbott, it does seem that this Rik Thomas is the one who founded and still owns Omni Productions[2]. He was interviewed in Giant Robot #30[3] and also what look like cameraphone pictures of him recording.[4] --abates 15:37, 23 November 2011 (EST)

For the love of little duckies and bunnies, somebody buy a copy!! - Chris McFeely 06:42, 25 November 2011 (EST)

Things

Found in a Lexis Nexis search:

Electronic Media

February 4, 1991

SECTION: BRIEFLY NOTED; Pg. 33

First-run syndication

'Transformers' available globally: Sunbow Productions is offering 115 new episodes of "The Trans-formers," the half-hour animated children's series, for international distribution. The new episodes join the 98 episodes already available for the New York-based distributor.

Unfortunately, that's all I can find. That places the dubs as being done sometime before early 1991, at least. I'm also not sure what "Electronic Media" is in this context, but I guess it must have been a trade magazine? The story is "Copyright 1991 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS, INC." at the end... ah, here we go.

http://www.crain.com/publications/advertising_media.html

Founded in 1982 as Electronic Media, TVWeek.com -- with around the clock coverage of breaking industry news -- is regarded as the most knowledgeable trade website in television.

So hurray, legitimacy!

Also, an article on dubbing in Hong Kong from the South China Morning Post mentioning Omni Productions, but it might not strictly apply to the company as it was when it dubbed TF if the above comments are of any indication... --Monzo 10:43, 15 January 2012 (EST)

Related vid

I posted this in the AllSpark thread, but I figured I'd put it here to make it easier to find. A poster on the Classic Horror Film board posted a clip which shows some dubbers in action, and some of the voices are familiar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlIPmXyHp1Y#t=341s --abates 22:05, 18 March 2013 (EDT)

Saul, Garth, etc.

You know how some random names like Saul and Garth recur in the scripts but aren't always used for the same characters? ...Is it possible some of these are voice actors' names? Just a thought. --flicky1991 05:31, 22 September 2013 (EDT)

We know at least some of the voice actors worked in Godfrey Ho films, so it might be worth looking through some of the cast lists maybe --abates 06:43, 22 September 2013 (EDT)

Dubber info

The guy who dubbed Fortress Maximus is named Simon Broad (he's fairly well know for dubbing Chow Yun Fat in many HK films), and one of the most commonly heard dubbers is named John Culkin (he voices Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime for instance).

You can see Broad dubbing Chow Yun Fat starting around 6:00 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlIPmXyHp1Y And you can hear Broad and Culkin having a phone conversation in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uDSfr3WLus Chorake (talk) 02:41, 12 October 2014 (EDT)

That's some awesome information right there! --abates (talk) 03:05, 12 October 2014 (EDT)

Corrections + More Dubber Info

Hello. Long story short I'm a person with a vested interest in crappy anime dubs and figuring out who acted in said crappy anime dubs. Being a life long Transformers fan I was naturally draw to the work of Omni Productions. I have a few things I would like to contribute to this page. Bear in mind that I have only seen the Headmasters dub. I don't have access to Super-God Masterforce or Victory.

First of all, there is a rather large mistake on this page. John Culkin is not in the Headmasters dub. All of the roles currently assigned to him were actually done by an actor named Pierre Tremblay. Here is Pierre dubbing an actor in the infamous Riki-Oh. https://youtu.be/OyXohnrEXVA?t=31m9s

Sound familiar? It should because that is the exact same voice as Cyclonus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcfclhHnZKM#t=0m14s

The best course of action might be to simply rename the John Culkin page to Pierre Tremblay. Although since I haven't seen the dubs of the other two series I can't speak as to whether or not John actually is in those. I'll leave this up to someone who has seen those dubs and can confirm whether or not those voices sound like the ones in Headmasters.

I believe I can pin all of the voices in Headmasters down to five, maybe six, individuals.

First of all there are two female voices one. One has a higher pitch sound to her, she plays Daniel and Arcee. The other has a raspy voice and a noticable Celtic accent(I personally think it sounds more Irish than Scottish). She plays Wheelie and Carly. Sorry to say I have no idea who these people are.

As for the male voices...

I've already brought up Pierre Tremblay while Rik Thomas and Simon Broad are pretty self-evident as well. There is potentially one more guy here. He plays Scorponok, Spike, Chromedome, possibly Ultra Magnus and... uh... nobody else far as I can tell. Given the minuscule amount of roles this guy has I think it's fairly safe to say this is actually one of the other guys here and I fell most confident that it's Simon for a few reasons. Reason 1 is that Fortress Maximus sounds an awful lot like Scorponok in episode 13, the one where he fights that plant monster. Reason 2 is Ultra Magnus, who seems to flip flop between sounding like Spike and sounding like Highbrow. Reason 3 is Simon's natural voice, which is actually quite deep and not too far a cry from Scorponok. YOu can hear it in this interview. https://youtu.be/fl3Tli41JHY

So yeah, that's pretty much it. Nightmare Crusher (talk) 13:01, 2 December 2016 (EST)

I made a mistake, Scorponok, et al. really were done by another actor. His name's Jack Murphy, this is what he sounds like.

http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/Jack-Murphy/

Nightmare Crusher

You're doing Primus's work son. Energizer (talk) 18:40, 18 August 2018 (EDT)

Hi, I'm back again. I've now seen Masterforce and Victory's dubs in their entirety. I've come to say I was slightly wrong before. Turns out John Culkin and Pierre Tremblay are both in these dubs. The quick and dirty breakdown is basically that they're similar sounding, but John has a more distinct accent and Pierre is really raspy. Or, to put it another way, if it sounds like Headmasters Hot Rod it's John, if it sounds like Headmasters Optimus or Cyclonus it's Pierre. A decent way to learn their differences is to watch that episode of Victory where Leozack is disguised as Star Saber. John voices the real one, Pierre voices the fake.

Also of note is that while the work is split between them for Headmasters and Victory only John is in Masterforce.

Links

Me talking about Masterforce dub + Comprehensive cast list. https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/forums/showpost.php?p=159469&postcount=1

Me explaining the John vs Pierre thing in greater detail + Breakdown of most of who did what in Headmasters. https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/forums/showpost.php?p=160466&postcount=16

My comprehensive Victory cast list. https://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/forums/showpost.php?p=162235&postcount=1

I'm not gonna impose my findings upon the wiki. If you trust me go ahead and use them. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

Nightmare Crusher (talk) 9:29, 23 November 2019 (EST)

Late reply but once again, thank you. Energizier 00:43, 13 April 2021 (EDT)

Is this legit?

Is the Omni Productions really official? I thought they were bootleg. Does Tfwiki allow bootleg info? Tylerwu (talk) 22:55, 7 June 2021 (EDT)